


A Bitter Pill To Swallow

by noodlerdoodler



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Relationships, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 18:51:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4972348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlerdoodler/pseuds/noodlerdoodler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vriska didn't love him. </p>
<p>Eridan didn't love her either.</p>
<p>Yet they were together. </p>
<p>Kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bitter Pill To Swallow

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts I found on DeviantArt based off cliché sayings!! I'm also attempting to write new pairings! Hooray!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't hate Vriska. I love Vriska. I promise.

Vriska didn't love him. 

For whatever reason, Eridan found this hard to believe even when the evidence was laid out right in front of him. Even when anybody else could have seen it from miles away, he'd somehow missed the signs. Maybe he really was just an idiot. But he still thought that she loved him. 

Because, sure, she would beat around his emotions and call him pathetic, call him names, tease him relentlessly in a way that made his chest hurt and not in a good way. Sure, she would always kick him when he was done and if he couldn't take another round of pailing, she'd scoff at him and call him weak, especially if he cried afterwards. Sure, she would yell at him well into the night about every little and he would scream back until his voice was hoarse. 

But when he heard her soft voice calling from the 'coon for him to come back and cuddle, he'd find the same mix of red and black that he'd originally felt for her pooling in his aquatic vascular bladder organ. A disgusting sludge of flushed feelings and pitch that seemed to flow through his veins no matter what she said or did. And at her words, he'd moved away from where he'd been flicking through her collection of books in search of anything decent to read. Eridan loved to read. But there was nothing here for him. Nothing. 

Except her. And he knew her just as well as he knew his books. 

Or so he thought. 

"Come back here, Ampora." Vriska was using her sickly sweet voice that drew him in every time, the voice that had enthralled him before he could even realise that she was faking it.

His legs forced him to move, forcing him to walk back over, and climb back into the recuperacoon. Usually, he found that he enjoyed the comfort of sopor slime but climbing into it with Vriska made him feel like he was stepping into his quick sand. It made him feel as if he were sinking, as if he were drowning, and that was when he realised that he wouldn't be able to sleep today. He winced as Vriska's slim arms wrapped their way around him and pulled him into her spidery grip, trapping him against his body. 

He was trapped there and he couldn't wriggle free, even if he wanted to. 

He couldn't move or even breathe, he was scared to, pressed up against her like this. Yet, being this close to her stirred something in him, caused something in his chest to leap at the feeling. She was warm and she held him like she wanted him and it made his chest throb with disgust and delight. 

He hated himself for being so easy. 

Vriska didn't love him. 

Even when he was doubled over on the ground with her blue underwear in his mouth to keep him quiet and covered in a mix of purple and blue slurry, he couldn't bring himself to accept the fact. As she kicked him in the face, as she abused him, left him lying there in a mess of blood and geneslime and god knows what else, he still couldn't accept that she didn't love him. That she never loved him. There must be a spark somewhere between. She must feel some kind of affection for him, albeit she didn't seem to show it. 

He'd admit that perhaps there was a bump in their relationship, some things that they needed to talk out, but he would never admit that any romantic feelings there had ever been had vanished into thin air. He tried to remember a time where they'd been close and other than awkwardly blackflirting when they were kids and they were playing pirates, nothing comes to mind. 

He certainly can't remember her even telling him that she was pitch or flushed or anything. 

He did remember her telling him that she thought quadrants were idiotic. 

She'd never told him that she loved him, he realised as he lay awake in her arms, listening to the sound of her slow breathing. Eridan could feel her chest rising and falling steadily; she clearly had no qualms with this relationship, whatever quadrant it was, if it was any at all. Maybe she did enjoy it then? She'd certainly never brought up the idea of breaking it off. 

Which meant that she must derive some sort of pleasure from it. 

Which lead him to wonder if she had any feelings for him- flushed, pitch or pale- or if she was just using him as something to pail. A toy to play with, something to solve her sexual frustration. It was true that she never aimed to romanticise him, she just went straight to paling. Any attempts he made to date her properly would just end with him pinned under her as she bucked into him and whispered degrading words. Of course, Eridan had loved it at first but now, he longed for something more than plain lust. 

He wanted love and affection, something more than the flirting they'd do via Pesterchum or when she'd confront him at one of their hives or even in public, something more than the way she liked to pin him up against the wall and bite at his fins, scratch at his gills. 

Eridan wanted- needed- somebody that loves him for more than just pailing.

And yet, he couldn't help wondering if he really wanted it to be Vriska. Sure, she had a smoking body and he loved every single one of her curves and every single one of her advances. She could make his body scream out in arousal without lifting a finger. 

Maybe, he supposes, he's just as bad as her. Because he thinks that he might love Vriska for the way that she pails him, not for the person she is. She's a bitch, a heartless one, and he can't love that. He can offer that affection but he can't love it. He would never want to date Vriska, he thinks now, not properly. 

But it wasn't as if he got much of a choice in who he dated. 

Not since he'd managed to turn everybody away from him.

Vriska didn't love him. 

He supposed the reason that he put up with it was because there was nobody else that he could turn to. He'd spent so many of his years trying to win Feferi's attention and affection, not considering anybody else good enough to be his friend. He'd worked so hard to make himself seem perfect for her, somehow getting confused about the signals that he was receiving from her. 

Because he'd managed to get it into his head that she was flushed for him too. 

He didn't think anybody else any lower on the blood caste was worthy of his attention. He'd been so set on winning Feferi that he'd blatantly shoved away anybody else that tried to contact him, knowing that he'd never feel anything for anyone else. As for friends, he'd never considered them important. He was more set on genocide than friendship. 

Then, Feferi had rejected his flushed affections and brutally ended their moirallegiance. She'd left him with a hole in his bloodpusher and nobody to fill it. Nobody but her. The one girl that he had offered attention to, only because she shared some of his more murderous ideals and because she also valued the idea of pirates. They loved pirates. 

Suddenly, he'd found himself with nobody else to turn to; no other quadrants, not even a friend. So he'd turned to her. All that he had was Vriska Serket and her twisted mind games. And deep down, he knew that she only tolerated him being she didn't have anybody else either. Since she'd paralysed Tavros, since she'd blinded Terezi, Vriska had been as much of an outcast as him. 

Nobody liked either of them, nobody wanted quadrants with either of them, so they'd clicked together. 

But it wasn't right, Eridan thinks now, it's not right. 

They shouldn't lead each other on like this. 

Vriska didn't love him. 

He had to accept that, to swallow that truth and accept that it was reality. And yet, when he had heard her calling for him, he had scurried obediently to her side. He'd climbed into her 'coon, still sticky with both of their fluids, and curled close to her. He didn't love her, he didn't want her, yet he turned to her for a kind of comfort. She was almost like a crutch, a reassurance that he could be loved. 

Except she didn't love him. 

Laying awake late at day with the cerulean blood wrapped around his body, her mouth pressed against his chest and her sharp tongue darting out to lick at him every now and again, he struggled to accept the fact. But he had to. He'd known it deep down for a while; she didn't love him, she didn't even like him. She hardly managed to tolerate him. And he felt the same towards her. It was silly to pretend any longer. Sitting up now, he wanted to cry because he'd been so stupid for so long. When she felt him move, losing her cuddle buddy, Vriska shifted up onto her elbows. 

"Eridan, where are you going?" 

He slid out of the recuperacoon and scooped his clothes off the floor, beginning to dress himself again. Some of them were badly torn but he pulled them on anyway, knowing he had several other outfits back at his hive. He could change when he got back. He ignored her questions, ignored her stares, ignored her calls for him to come back. Instead, he just finished redressing himself silently and crossed the room, heading towards the door. She was screaming at him to come back. 

"You can't leave, idiot, you'll burn in the sun!" 

He didn't say anything, leaving her staring after him, heading down the stairs. She was right, of course, he couldn't exactly leave. Still, if he hid out on the porch until it was dark enough, then he'd be able to leave. 

He would leave and never come back here. 

She wouldn't bother getting up to try and stop him, she didn't love him. He was nothing more than somebody needy to pail and Vriska could easily find somebody else. She was alluring like that; he'd be replaced within days, if not hours. She didn't need him. 

Because Vriska didn't love him. 

Eridan didn't love her either.


End file.
